The origins of the British 'B' picture - a label which might loosely and very
generally be applied to a short, low-budget film, designed for cinema screening
in support of, a longer, more expensive, higher-quality 'main attraction' - can
be traced back to the early 1930s. As the awkward transition from silent to
sound cinema took place, cost-conscious patrons thought carefully before they
bought a ticket. Some smaller cinemas competed with wealthier rivals by showing
an extra film with the main feature (which became known, especially in America,
as the 'A' picture) to provide value for money. The practice caught on, and the
'B' picture was born.

The Cinematograph Films Act (1927) was introduced to stem the flood of
American films into British cinemas. This protective legislation obliged
exhibitors to programme a certain percentage of home-produced film. Intended to
encourage quality filmmaking, the actual result of the Act was a plethora of
short, cheap, quickly shot supporting features - 'quota quickies' - derided by
critics at the time as a disgrace to British cinema. In retrospect, it can be
seen that the 'quickies' provided a valuable training ground for filmmakers,
technicians and actors who would later go on to greater things in 'quality'
British cinema (including such notable figures as Michael Powell and David
Lean). New legislation was introduced in 1938, but the legal obligation to
programme British films as well as Hollywood product - and the public's desire
for the value for money offered by these lower budget 'supporting features' or
'programmers' - remained.

The war years saw a turn away from fiction film in the British supporting
programme as documentaries - valuable tools for boosting patriotism and public
morale - became an integral part of the cinema experience. With studio space
earmarked for use by the Ministry of Information, and film stock becoming ever
more expensive, independently made low budget supporting films were fewer in
number and shorter in length. The most compact of these supporting features -
perhaps running between 30 and 40 minutes - were labelled 'featurettes'. Quickly
churned out by industry entrepreneurs including the prolific Harold Baim and
Horace Shepherd, these films provided reassurance and escapism, sometimes by way
of comforting travelogues, or successions of cheaply shot variety turns.

After the war, the major British (and American) studios, keen to maintain a
firm grip on the market and less keen on the concept of the 'double feature',
focused their resources on long, lavish, prestigious fiction features, designed
as single attractions, without need of support. Meanwhile, small independent
producers, unable to compete with the major studios in financial terms, relied
on continued demand, both from the public and cinema programmers, for the value
for money inherent in the full supporting programme. Meanwhile, the legal
requirement to show British films on British screens continued. Cinema managers
were often compelled to book 'B' pictures, regardless of their quality, to
comply with the law, whether they liked them or not. Inevitably, however, the
more popular the 'B' picture, the more bookings it was likely to get. A
proliferation of small British studios - among them Exclusive/Hammer, Merton Park, Butcher's Film Services, Adelphi, Danziger Productions and New Realm -
sprang up to fulfil this need, and their productions were vital to the
livelihood of many writers, directors, actors and technicians.

Though inevitably overshadowed by big-budget screen extravaganzas, and taken
for granted at the time, the humble British 'B' picture could offer more than
escapist entertainment, vital though that was. Theirs was an unpretentious,
down-at-heel take on society, a reminder of the concerns and aspirations of
everyday people in an austere, pre-permissive Britain; often in refreshing
contrast to the distinctly middle-class world glossily presented in the 'main
feature attraction'. Devil's Bait (1959), a tense melodrama about a poisoned
loaf of bread sold to an unwitting customer, also included an intriguing low-key
sub-plot about a jaded baker and his wife coming to terms with their marital
difficulties over a cup of tea and a biscuit. The quaint comedy Small Hotel
(1957) contained valuable - and plausible - lessons from a shifty waiter on how
to secure a more sizeable tip or a half-finished bottle of wine from an affluent
diner. End of the Road (1954) explored the harsh realities of old age through
the forced retirement of a skilled plater.

Though well crafted, by the mid 1950s British 'B' pictures were beginning to
look somewhat shabby alongside expensive-looking full colour supporting features
from across the Atlantic. Television was also beginning to make inroads into
cinema attendance and was consuming scripts at an alarming rate. Entrepreneurs
and filmmakers looking for a new angle packaged British 'B's with foreign
features, or, drawing inspiration from abroad, diversified into the kind of
exploitation territory television could not replicate, like horror (an effective
example being 1960's The Tell-Tale Heart), or adult entertainment (such as
Harrison Marks' 1961 nudist film-travelogue Naked - As Nature Intended).
Producers also focused on niche markets where cheap, ephemeral product could be
exploited quickly to a small but devoted audience; the early British rock 'n'
roll film Rock You Sinners (1957) was one early attempt to lure teenagers
into the cinema.

With film companies increasingly devoting their resources to stand-alone
'quality' releases, and television replacing the cinema as the cheap
entertainment of choice, production of supporting features dwindled towards the
end of the 1960s as the British film industry began a slow decline. The 'double
bill', and the supporting programme (increasingly using cheap travelogues, or
recycling films of previous years) lingered on, but by the lean times of the
1980s, following the Conservative Government's removal of the Eady Levy (a
long-standing tax on cinema takings, intended to support British film
production), the era of the supporting programme - and with it the British 'B'
picture - was already fading into memory.

Vic Pratt

Further reading:
Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane, The British 'B' Film (BFI/Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)